Systems and methods for loading interactive media guide data based on user history

ABSTRACT

Systems and methods for efficiently loading interactive media guide data based on user history are provided. A plurality of asset descriptions associated with a first media asset is received. A second media asset related to the first media asset is identified. An asset description is selected form the plurality of asset descriptions based on user history of accessing the second media asset. Data for the first media asset is loaded. Data for the first media asset comprises the selected asset description.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation application of U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 14/319,007, filed Jun. 30, 2014, now allowed, whichis hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

BACKGROUND

Traditional systems load media guidance data and generate user interfaceelements for media assets based on fixed rules. For example, cover art,title and a brief description may be loaded and generated for displayfor all user interface elements in a media guidance display screen,including those user interface elements that are associated with mediaassets the user has accessed in the past. Thus, traditional systems failto maximize available bandwidth for transmission of media assetdescriptions, present only relevant functionality and efficientlygenerate a media guidance display screen.

SUMMARY

In view of the foregoing, systems and methods for loading interactivemedia guide data based on user history in accordance with variousembodiments of the present disclosure are provided.

In some embodiments, a plurality of asset descriptions associated with afirst media asset is received and a second media asset related to thefirst media asset is identified. An asset description is selected fromthe plurality of asset descriptions based on user history of accessingthe second media asset. Data for the first media asset is loaded, withthe data for the first media asset comprising the selected assetdescription.

In some embodiments, the asset description may include one or moredescriptive elements. A descriptive element may include cover art,title, year, genre, episode number, series number, director, producer,creator, writer, member of the cast, album art, review, rating, price,summary, synopsis, critique, a portion of the media asset such as apreview or an image or a frame of the media asset, a portion of an audioincluded in the media asset, or any combination thereof, including acombination that does not include the title of the media asset.

In some embodiments, the asset description may include a file or a datastructure that identifies a descriptive element of the assetdescription. The asset description may include a parameter associatedwith a display property of the descriptive element (e.g., its size,color, relative or absolute position, brightness, opaqueness, etc.).

In some embodiments, each asset description in the plurality of assetdescriptions may provide a different amount of information about thefirst media asset. For example, a first asset description may includeonly cover art of the first media asset; a second asset description mayinclude both cover art and a brief text description; a third assetdescription may include title information only or a brief textdescription only. an asset description for a particular media asset fromstorage 308 based on the user's history of accessing that particularmedia asset or a related media asset in the past.

In some embodiments, an asset description for the first media asset maybe selected based on the user's preferences, user's history of accessinga related media asset in the past, or both. For example, an assetdescription for the first media asset may be selected based on thenumber of times the user has previously accessed the related media assetor a frequency with which the user accesses the related media asset. Adifferent asset description may be associated with a different number oftimes the user has accessed a related media asset, e.g., so that themedia guidance application may adapt to user's behavior over time andgenerate progressively simpler and more intuitive media guidance displayscreens.

In some embodiments, the media guidance display screen includes a userinterface element associated with the first media asset (or with aproduct). A single description of the first media asset or producthaving multiple pieces of information is received. Prior to generatingthe user interface element, the single description may be parsed so thatto select particular pieces of information or portions of these piecesof information to be included in the user interface element. Forexample, a full text description may be parsed to select particularportions of the full text description in order to create a summary.

In some implementations, a user interface element of the first mediaasset (or a product) may be generated or modified based on user'shistory of accessing a second media asset that is related to the firstmedia asset. A candidate media asset may be designated as a relatedmedia asset based on characteristics stored in the user profile, arelationship between the first media asset and the candidate mediaassets, or both.

In some embodiments, the user interface element associated with thefirst media asset (or a product) includes one or more visual objects.Visual objects may be arranged in a particular order.

In some embodiments, visual objects to be included in the user interfaceelement may be selected based on whether a second user has recommended amedia asset (or a product) to the user of the media guidanceapplication. The second user may be another user of the media guidanceapplication or may be related to the first user, e.g., the second usermay be identified as a friend or a relative in the user profile of themedia guidance application or in the user profile of a third partyprovider.

In some embodiments, the user interface element may be generated basedon the number of times another user has commented, expressed a liking orposted a message about a particular media asset or a product.

In some embodiments, the user interface element may be generated basedon the number of user's friends who have commented, expressed a likingor posted a message about a particular media asset.

In some embodiments, display properties of user interface elements orvisual objects included in user interface elements may be dynamicallyadjusted based on user's viewing history. Display properties of visualobjects may include their size, font, font size, opaqueness or any otherdisplay property.

In some embodiments, the visual objects may be removed or rearrangedfrom a first order to a second order specifying their position relativeto each other.

It should be noted that the systems and/or methods described above maybe applied to, or used in accordance with, other systems, methods and/orapparatuses.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The above and other objects and advantages of the disclosure will beapparent upon consideration of the following detailed description, takenin conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like referencecharacters refer to like parts throughout, and in which:

FIGS. 1 and 2 show illustrative display screens that may be used toprovide media guidance application listings in accordance with anembodiment of the disclosure;

FIG. 3 shows an illustrative user equipment device in accordance withanother embodiment of the disclosure;

FIG. 4 is a diagram of an illustrative cross-platform interactive mediasystem in accordance with another embodiment of the disclosure;

FIG. 5 shows an illustrative display screen of an interactive mediaguidance application in accordance with another embodiment of thedisclosure;

FIGS. 6 and 7 show illustrative display screens of providing aninteractive media guidance application based on user history ofaccessing a media asset in accordance with embodiments of thedisclosure;

FIGS. 8A-B (hereinafter collectively referred to as FIG. 8) show adiagram of a process for loading interactive media guide data based onuser history in accordance with embodiments of the disclosure; and

FIGS. 9A-C (hereinafter collectively referred to as FIG. 9) show adiagram of a process for generating for display an interactive mediaguide based on user behavior in accordance with embodiments of thedisclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The amount of content available to users in any given content deliverysystem can be substantial. Consequently, many users desire a form ofmedia guidance through an interface that allows users to efficientlynavigate content selections and easily identify content that they maydesire. An application that provides such guidance is referred to hereinas an interactive media guidance application or, sometimes, a mediaguidance application or a guidance application.

Interactive media guidance applications may take various forms dependingon the content for which they provide guidance. One typical type ofmedia guidance application is an interactive television program guide.Interactive television program guides (sometimes referred to aselectronic program guides) are well-known guidance applications that,among other things, allow users to navigate among and locate many typesof content or media assets. Interactive media guidance applications maygenerate graphical user interface screens that enable a user to navigateamong, locate and select content. As referred to herein, the terms“media asset” and “content” should be understood to mean anelectronically consumable user asset, such as television programming, aswell as pay-per-view programs, on-demand programs (as in video-on-demand(VOD) systems), Internet content (e.g., streaming content, downloadablecontent, Webcasts, etc.), video clips, audio, content information,pictures, rotating images, documents, playlists, websites, articles,books, electronic books, blogs, advertisements, chat sessions, socialmedia, applications, games, and/or any other media or multimedia and/orcombination of the same. Guidance applications also allow users tonavigate among and locate content. As referred to herein, the term“multimedia” should be understood to mean content that utilizes at leasttwo different content forms described above, for example, text, audio,images, video, or interactivity content forms. Content may be recorded,played, displayed or accessed by user equipment devices, but can also bepart of a live performance.

The media guidance application and/or any instructions for performingany of the embodiments discussed herein may be encoded on computerreadable media. Computer readable media includes any media capable ofstoring data. The computer readable media may be transitory, including,but not limited to, propagating electrical or electromagnetic signals,or may be non-transitory including, but not limited to, volatile andnon-volatile computer memory or storage devices such as a hard disk,floppy disk, USB drive, DVD, CD, media cards, register memory, processorcaches, Random Access Memory (“RAM”), etc.

With the advent of the Internet, mobile computing, and high-speedwireless networks, users are accessing media on user equipment deviceson which they traditionally did not. As referred to herein, the phrase“user equipment device,” “user equipment,” “user device,” “electronicdevice,” “electronic equipment,” “media equipment device,” or “mediadevice” should be understood to mean any device for accessing thecontent described above, such as a television, a Smart TV, a set-topbox, an integrated receiver decoder (IRD) for handling satellitetelevision, a digital storage device, a digital media receiver (DMR), adigital media adapter (DMA), a streaming media device, a DVD player, aDVD recorder, a connected DVD, a local media server, a BLU-RAY player, aBLU-RAY recorder, a personal computer (PC), a laptop computer, a tabletcomputer, a WebTV box, a personal computer television (PC/TV), a PCmedia server, a PC media center, a hand-held computer, a stationarytelephone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a mobile telephone, aportable video player, a portable music player, a portable gamingmachine, a smart phone, or any other television equipment, computingequipment, or wireless device, and/or combination of the same. In someembodiments, the user equipment device may have a front facing screenand a rear facing screen, multiple front screens, or multiple angledscreens. In some embodiments, the user equipment device may have a frontfacing camera and/or a rear facing camera. On these user equipmentdevices, users may be able to navigate among and locate the same contentavailable through a television. Consequently, media guidance may beavailable on these devices, as well. The guidance provided may be forcontent available only through a television, for content available onlythrough one or more of other types of user equipment devices, or forcontent available both through a television and one or more of the othertypes of user equipment devices. The media guidance applications may beprovided as on-line applications (i.e., provided on a web-site), or asstand-alone applications or clients on user equipment devices. Variousdevices and platforms that may implement media guidance applications aredescribed in more detail below.

One of the functions of the media guidance application is to providemedia guidance data to users. As referred to herein, the phrase “mediaguidance data” or “guidance data” should be understood to mean any datarelated to content or data used in operating the guidance application.For example, the guidance data may include program information, multipleasset descriptions associated with any given media asset, user historyof accessing a media asset, including the number of times a user haspreviously accessed the media asset and a frequency at which the useraccesses the media asset, social media recommendations of the mediaasset, user guidance application settings, user preferences, userprofile information, media listings, media-related information (e.g.,broadcast times, broadcast channels, titles, box art, keywordscorresponding to a description of a media asset, relatedness of a givenmedia asset and another media asset, reviews and ratings information(e.g., parental control ratings, critic's ratings, etc.), genre orcategory information, actor information, logo data for broadcasters' orproviders' logos, etc.), media format (e.g., standard definition, highdefinition, 3D, etc.), advertisement information (e.g., text, images,media clips, relatedness of a given advertisement and anotheradvertisement or a given advertisement and a media asset, etc.),on-demand information, blogs, websites, and any other type of guidancedata that is helpful for a user to navigate among and locate desiredcontent selections.

FIGS. 1-2 show illustrative display screens that may be used to providemedia guidance data. The display screens shown in FIGS. 1-2 and 5-7 maybe implemented on any suitable user equipment device or platform. Whilethe displays of FIGS. 1-2 and 5-7 are illustrated as full screendisplays, they may also be fully or partially overlaid over contentbeing displayed. A user may indicate a desire to access contentinformation by selecting a selectable option provided in a displayscreen (e.g., a menu option, a listings option, an icon, a hyperlink,etc.) or pressing a dedicated button (e.g., a GUIDE button) on a remotecontrol or other user input interface or device. In response to theuser's indication, the media guidance application may provide a displayscreen with media guidance data organized in one of several ways, suchas by time and channel in a grid, by time, by channel, by source, bycontent type, by category (e.g., movies, sports, news, children, orother categories of programming), or other predefined, user-defined, orother organization criteria.

As referred to herein, the phrase “in response” should be understood tomean automatically, directly and immediately as a result of orautomatically based on the corresponding action where intervening inputsor actions may occur.

FIG. 1 shows illustrative grid of a program listings display 100arranged by time and channel that also enables access to different typesof content in a single display. Display 100 may include grid 102 with:(1) a column of channel/content type identifiers 104, where eachchannel/content type identifier (which is a cell in the column)identifies a different channel or content type available; and (2) a rowof time identifiers 106, where each time identifier (which is a cell inthe row) identifies a time block of programming. Grid 102 also includescells of program listings, such as program listing 108, where eachlisting provides the title of the program provided on the listing'sassociated channel and time. Instead of, or in addition to providing thetitle, each listing may provide a portion of the data associated withthe media asset corresponding to the program listing. For example, thelisting may include the cover art associated with the media asset, atext description of the media asset, a rating, a review by the user ofthe media guidance application, a review by another user or a critic.The cover art may depict one or more frames of the associated content ormay correspond to (e.g., may be a frame of) a play position at which theuser has previously paused the media asset. With a user input device, auser can select program listings by moving highlight region 110.Information or any other data relating to the program listing selectedby highlight region 110 may be provided in program information region112. Region 112 may include, for example, the program title, the programdescription, the time the program is provided (if applicable), thechannel the program is on (if applicable), the program's rating, andother desired information. For example, the information in region 112may identify a media asset that is related to the media asset associatedwith the selected program listing. In some embodiments, data included inprogram information region 112 may vary depending on user's history ofaccessing a program that is related to the program associated with theprogram listing 110. For example, the program associated with theprogram listing 110 may be an episode of “The Simpsons” and a relatedprogram may be “Futurama.” If the user has never watched “Futurama,”then the program information region 112 may include detailed informationabout “The Simpsons,” e.g., information including cover art, title and abrief text description. However, if the user regularly watches“Futurama,” then program information region 112 may include a shortdescription, e.g., comprising only cover art and title for “TheSimpsons.” In some implementations, the program listing 110 itself maylook different from other program listing in grid 102 and may bedetermined by user's history of accessing a program that is related tothe program associated with the program listing 110. For example, theprogram listing 110 may have a different size, color, font, font size,font color, brightness, opaqueness, or any other visual displaycharacteristic associated with program listings in grid 102.

As used herein, the terms “related media asset,” “related asset” or“related program” should be understood to mean any media asset orprogram that has a relationship with another media asset. Therelationship may be defined either automatically by monitoring theactivity of the user (e.g., determining user selections of userinterfaces, storing requests for media assets, search results, userhistory of accessing media assets, user recommendations of media assetsto other users, etc.) or manually by the user (e.g. by storing userpreferences or a user profile), or both. In some embodiments, attributesof two media assets (e.g., titles, genres, actors, reviews, ratings,keywords) may be compared to each other to determine whether one mediaasset is related to another. Comparison of the two media attributes mayyield a numerical or alphanumerical relatedness value or weight that maybe compared to a threshold (that may be set by the user). For example, afirst media asset may be the movie “A nightmare on Elm Street”associated with a first keyword “gore” and a second media asset may be“Friday the 13th: The Final chapter” associated with a keyword “blood.”Semantic algorithms, such as natural language algorithms, may be used tocompare the two keywords and determine that the two media assets arerelated with a certain relatedness value characterizing the degree ofrelatedness. If the relatedness value exceeds a threshold set by theuser, then the first and second media assets are designated as beingrelated to each other. In some embodiments, the Internet or a website,such as IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes, may be contacted or searched toidentify related media assets.

In certain implementations, instead of or in addition to comparing anattribute of a media asset with an attribute of another media asset, theattribute of the media asset may be compared to a characteristic or apreference stored in a user profile. The media asset may be classifiedas related or unrelated based on the comparison with the user's profile.For example, after determining that the movie “Ted” is potentiallyrelated to the TV series “Family Guy” (e.g., based on the fact that SethMacFarlane was the creator of both), the genre of “Ted” may be comparedto the genre preferences stored in the user profile. If the user hasexpressed a strong dislike in film comedies (of which “Ted” is anexample), “Ted” may be designated as an unrelated media asset.

In some implementations, a first media asset may be designated asrelated to a second media asset based in part on how recently the userhas accessed a second media asset. Specifically, the time elapsed fromthe moment the user accessed the second media asset may be compared to athreshold (that may be set by the user). In some implementations, if itis determined that the elapsed time exceeds the threshold, the firstmedia asset may be designated as unrelated to the second media asset orof no relevance to the user. For example, if more than a year has passedsince the user has previously viewed an episode of “Family Guy,” the TVshow “American Dad” may be designated as unrelated to “Family Guy” or asof no relevance to the user even though both shows may be consideredrelated otherwise (e.g., in view of both being sitcoms and created bythe same person). Similarly, if the user has seen an episode of “Weeds”only two days ago, “Breaking Bad” may be designated as related to“Weeds.”

In addition to providing access to linear programming (e.g., contentthat is scheduled to be transmitted to a plurality of user equipmentdevices at a predetermined time and is provided according to aschedule), the media guidance application also provides access tonon-linear programming (e.g., content accessible to a user equipmentdevice at any time and is not provided according to a schedule).Non-linear programming may include content from different contentsources including on-demand content (e.g., VOD), Internet content (e.g.,streaming media, downloadable media, etc.), locally stored content(e.g., content stored on any user equipment device described above orother storage device), or other time-independent content. On-demandcontent may include movies or any other content provided by a particularcontent provider (e.g., HBO On Demand providing “The Sopranos” and “CurbYour Enthusiasm”). HBO ON DEMAND is a service mark owned by Time WarnerCompany L.P. et al. and THE SOPRANOS and CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM aretrademarks owned by the Home Box Office, Inc. Internet content mayinclude web events, such as a chat session or Webcast, or contentavailable on-demand as streaming content or downloadable content throughan Internet web site or other Internet access (e.g. FTP).

Grid 102 may provide media guidance data for non-linear programmingincluding on-demand listing 114, recorded content listing 116, andInternet content listing 118. A display combining media guidance datafor content from different types of content sources is sometimesreferred to as a “mixed-media” display. Various permutations of thetypes of media guidance data that may be displayed that are differentfrom display 100 may be based on user selection or guidance applicationdefinition (e.g., a display of only recorded and broadcast listings,only on-demand and broadcast listings, etc.). As illustrated, listings114, 116, and 118 are shown as spanning the entire time block displayedin grid 102 to indicate that selection of these listings may provideaccess to a display dedicated to on-demand listings, recorded listings,or Internet listings, respectively. In some embodiments, listings forthese content types may be included directly in grid 102. Additionalmedia guidance data may be displayed in response to the user selectingone of the navigational icons 120. (Pressing an arrow key on a userinput device may affect the display in a similar manner as selectingnavigational icons 120.)

Display 100 may also include video region 122, advertisement 124, andoptions region 126. Video region 122 may allow the user to view and/orpreview programs that are currently available, will be available, orwere available to the user. The content of video region 122 maycorrespond to, or be independent from, one of the listings displayed ingrid 102. Grid displays including a video region are sometimes referredto as picture-in-guide (PIG) displays. PIG displays and theirfunctionalities are described in greater detail in Satterfield et al.U.S. Pat. No. 6,564,378, issued May 13, 2003 and Yuen et al. U.S. Pat.No. 6,239,794, issued May 29, 2001, which are hereby incorporated byreference herein in their entireties. PIG displays may be included inother media guidance application display screens of the embodimentsdescribed herein.

Advertisement 124 may provide an advertisement for content that,depending on a viewer's access rights (e.g., for subscriptionprogramming), is currently available for viewing, will be available forviewing in the future, or may never become available for viewing, andmay correspond to or be unrelated to one or more of the content listingsin grid 102. Advertisement 124 may also be for products or servicesrelated or unrelated to the content displayed in grid 102. Advertisement124 may be selectable and provide further information about content,provide information about a product or a service, enable purchasing ofcontent, a product, or a service, provide content relating to theadvertisement, etc. Advertisement 124 may be targeted based on a user'sprofile/preferences, monitored user activity, the type of displayprovided, based on whether the user has previously accessed a mediaasset related to the media asset associated with a program listing ingrid 102, or on other suitable targeted advertisement bases. Forexample, advertisement 124 may include any of the recommendationsdiscussed below in connection with FIGS. 5-7.

While advertisement 124 is shown as rectangular or banner shaped,advertisements may be provided in any suitable size, shape, and locationin a guidance application display. For example, advertisement 124 may beprovided as a rectangular shape that is horizontally adjacent to grid102. This is sometimes referred to as a panel advertisement. Inaddition, advertisements may be overlaid over content or a guidanceapplication display or embedded within a display. Advertisements mayalso include text, images, rotating images, video clips, or other typesof content described above. Advertisements may be stored in a userequipment device having a guidance application, in a database connectedto the user equipment, in a remote location (including streaming mediaservers), or on other storage means, or a combination of theselocations. Providing advertisements in a media guidance application isdiscussed in greater detail in, for example, Knudson et al., U.S. PatentApplication Publication No. 2003/0110499, filed Jan. 17, 2003; Ward, IIIet al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,756,997, issued Jun. 29, 2004; and Schein et al.U.S. Pat. No. 6,388,714, issued May 14, 2002, which are herebyincorporated by reference herein in their entireties. It will beappreciated that advertisements may be included in other media guidanceapplication display screens of the embodiments described herein.

Options region 126 may allow the user to access different types ofcontent, media guidance application displays, and/or media guidanceapplication features. Options region 126 may be part of display 100 (andother display screens described herein), or may be invoked by a user byselecting an on-screen option or pressing a dedicated or assignablebutton on a user input device. The selectable options within optionsregion 126 may concern features related to program listings in grid 102or may include options available from a main menu display. Featuresrelated to program listings may include searching for other airtimes orways of receiving a program, recording a program, enabling seriesrecording of a program, setting program and/or channel as a favorite,purchasing a program, identifying media assets that are related to amedia asset associated with a program listing in grid 102, or otherfeatures. Options available from a main menu display may include searchoptions, VOD options, parental control options, Internet options,cloud-based options, device synchronization options, second screendevice options, options to access various types of media guidance datadisplays, options to subscribe to a premium service, options to edit auser's profile, options to access a browse overlay, or other options.

The media guidance application may be personalized based on a user'spreferences. A personalized media guidance application allows a user tocustomize displays and features to create a personalized “experience”with the media guidance application. This personalized experience may becreated by allowing a user to input these customizations and/or by themedia guidance application monitoring user activity to determine varioususer preferences. Users may access their personalized guidanceapplication by logging in or otherwise identifying themselves to theguidance application. Customization of the media guidance applicationmay be made in accordance with a user profile. The customizations mayinclude varying presentation schemes (e.g., color scheme of displays,font size of text, etc.), aspects of content listings displayed (e.g.,only HDTV or only 3D programming, user-specified broadcast channelsbased on favorite channel selections, re-ordering the display ofchannels, recommended content, etc.), desired recording features (e.g.,recording or series recordings for particular users, recording quality,etc.), parental control settings, customized presentation of Internetcontent (e.g., presentation of social media content, e-mail,electronically delivered articles, etc.) and other desiredcustomizations.

The media guidance application may allow a user to provide user profileinformation or may automatically compile user profile information. Themedia guidance application may, for example, monitor the content theuser accesses and/or other interactions the user may have with theguidance application. Additionally, the media guidance application mayobtain all or part of other user profiles that are related to aparticular user (e.g., from other web sites on the Internet the useraccesses, such as www.allrovi.com, from other media guidanceapplications the user accesses, from other interactive applications theuser accesses, from another user equipment device of the user, etc.),and/or obtain information about the user from other sources that themedia guidance application may access. As a result, a user can beprovided with a unified guidance application experience across theuser's different user equipment devices. This type of user experience isdescribed in greater detail below in connection with FIG. 4. Additionalpersonalized media guidance application features are described ingreater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No.2005/0251827, filed Jul. 11, 2005, Boyer et al., U.S. Pat. No.7,165,098, issued Jan. 16, 2007, and Ellis et al., U.S. PatentApplication Publication No. 2002/0174430, filed Feb. 21, 2002, which arehereby incorporated by reference herein in their entireties.

Another display arrangement for providing media guidance is shown inFIG. 2. Video mosaic display 200 includes selectable options 202 forcontent information organized based on content type, genre, and/or otherorganization criteria. In display 200, television listings option 204 isselected, thus providing listings 206, 208, 210, and 212 as broadcastprogram listings. Program listing 206, 208, 210, and 212 may be relatedto each other. For example, program listings 208, 210, and 212 may berelated to the program listing 206 based on the relationship between amedia asset associated with the program listing 206 and a correspondingmedia asset associated with a program listing 208, 210, or 212. Programlistings 208, 210 and 212 may also be related to the program listing 206based on monitored user behavior or a user preference stored in a userprofile. In display 200 the listings may provide graphical imagesincluding cover art, still images from the content, video clip previews,live video from the content, or other types of content that indicate toa user the content being described by the media guidance data in thelisting. The graphical images presented in display 200 and theirattributes may change over time based on user's history of accessing agiven media asset. For example, graphical images 208, 210 and 212 mayappear in a smaller size after the user has accessed a media assetassociated with the program listing 206 a given number of times, or ifthe frequency at which the user accesses a media asset associated withthe program listing 206 exceeds a given frequency threshold. Each of thegraphical listings may also be accompanied by text to provide furtherinformation about the content associated with the listing. For example,listing 208 may include more than one portion, including media portion214 and text portion 216. Media portion 214 and/or text portion 216 maybe selectable to view content in full-screen or to view informationrelated to the content displayed in media portion 214 (e.g., to viewlistings for the channel that the video is displayed on).

The listings in display 200 are of different sizes (i.e., listing 206 islarger than listings 208, 210, and 212), but if desired, all thelistings may be the same size. Listings may be of different sizes orgraphically accentuated to indicate degrees of interest to the user orto emphasize certain content, as desired by the content provider orbased on user preferences. Various systems and methods for graphicallyaccentuating content listings are discussed in, for example, Yates, U.S.Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0153885, filed Dec. 29, 2005,which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Users may access content and the media guidance application (and itsdisplay screens described above and below) from one or more of theiruser equipment devices. FIG. 3 shows a generalized embodiment ofillustrative user equipment device 300. More specific implementations ofuser equipment devices are discussed below in connection with FIG. 4.User equipment device 300 may receive content and data via input/output(hereinafter “I/O”) path 302. I/O path 302 may provide content (e.g.,broadcast programming, on-demand programming, Internet content, contentavailable over a local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN),and/or other content) and data to control circuitry 304, which includesprocessing circuitry 306 and storage 308. Control circuitry 304 may beused to send and receive commands, requests, and other suitable datausing I/O path 302. I/O path 302 may connect control circuitry 304 (andspecifically processing circuitry 306) to one or more communicationspaths (described below). I/O functions may be provided by one or more ofthese communications paths, but are shown as a single path in FIG. 3 toavoid overcomplicating the drawing.

In some embodiments, a viewing history may be stored in storage 308 fora user. The viewing history may include indications of which mediaassets have been viewed by a given user. The viewing history may alsoinclude, for each media asset, the number of times the media asset hasbeen accessed by a given user and the frequency at which a given useraccesses the media asset. In some implementations, the viewing historymay include indications of which users in a group of users have seen orviewed a media asset or a particular segment of a media asset. In someimplementations, the viewing history may include indications of whichmedia assets the user or a group of users have recommended to otherusers. The group of users may be users in a certain geographicallocation (e.g., in the same home) or users that are associated with eachother on a social network.

Control circuitry 304 may be based on any suitable processing circuitrysuch as processing circuitry 306. As referred to herein, processingcircuitry should be understood to mean circuitry based on one or moremicroprocessors, microcontrollers, digital signal processors,programmable logic devices, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs),application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), etc., and may includea multi-core processor (e.g., dual-core, quad-core, hexa-core, or anysuitable number of cores) or supercomputer. In some embodiments,processing circuitry may be distributed across multiple separateprocessors or processing units, for example, multiple of the same typeof processing units (e.g., two Intel Core i7 processors) or multipledifferent processors (e.g., an Intel Core i5 processor and an Intel Corei7 processor). In some embodiments, control circuitry 304 executesinstructions for a media guidance application stored in memory (i.e.,storage 308). Specifically, control circuitry 304 may be instructed bythe media guidance application to perform the functions discussed aboveand below. For example, the media guidance application may provideinstructions to control circuitry 304 to generate the media guidancedisplays. In some implementations, any action performed by controlcircuitry 304 may be based on instructions received from the mediaguidance application.

In client-server based embodiments, control circuitry 304 may includecommunications circuitry suitable for communicating with a guidanceapplication server or other networks or servers. The instructions forcarrying out the above-mentioned functionality may be stored on theguidance application server. Communications circuitry may include acable modem, an integrated services digital network (ISDN) modem, adigital subscriber line (DSL) modem, a telephone modem, Ethernet card,or a wireless modem for communications with other equipment, or anyother suitable communications circuitry. Such communications may involvethe Internet or any other suitable communications networks or paths(which is described in more detail in connection with FIG. 4). Inaddition, communications circuitry may include circuitry that enablespeer-to-peer communication of user equipment devices, or communicationof user equipment devices in locations remote from each other (describedin more detail below).

Memory may be an electronic storage device provided as storage 308 thatis part of control circuitry 304. As referred to herein, the phrase“electronic storage device” or “storage device” should be understood tomean any device for storing electronic data, computer software, orfirmware, such as random-access memory, read-only memory, hard drives,optical drives, digital video disc (DVD) recorders, compact disc (CD)recorders, BLU-RAY disc (BD) recorders, BLU-RAY 3D disc recorders,digital video recorders (DVR, sometimes called a personal videorecorder, or PVR), solid state devices, quantum storage devices, gamingconsoles, gaming media, or any other suitable fixed or removable storagedevices, and/or any combination of the same. Storage 308 may be used tostore various types of content described herein as well as mediaguidance data described above. Nonvolatile memory may also be used(e.g., to launch a boot-up routine and other instructions). Cloud-basedstorage, described in relation to FIG. 4, may be used to supplementstorage 308 or instead of storage 308.

Control circuitry 304 may include video generating circuitry and tuningcircuitry, such as one or more analog tuners, one or more MPEG-2decoders or other digital decoding circuitry, high-definition tuners, orany other suitable tuning or video circuits or combinations of suchcircuits. Encoding circuitry (e.g., for converting over-the-air, analog,or digital signals to MPEG signals for storage) may also be provided.Control circuitry 304 may also include scaler circuitry for upconvertingand downconverting content into the preferred output format of the userequipment 300. Circuitry 304 may also include digital-to-analogconverter circuitry and analog-to-digital converter circuitry forconverting between digital and analog signals. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may be used by the user equipment device to receive and todisplay, to play, or to record content. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may also be used to receive guidance data. The circuitrydescribed herein, including for example, the tuning, video generating,encoding, decoding, encrypting, decrypting, scaler, and analog/digitalcircuitry, may be implemented using software running on one or moregeneral purpose or specialized processors. Multiple tuners may beprovided to handle simultaneous tuning functions (e.g., watch and recordfunctions, picture-in-picture (PIP) functions, multiple-tuner recording,etc.). If storage 308 is provided as a separate device from userequipment 300, the tuning and encoding circuitry (including multipletuners) may be associated with storage 308.

Control circuitry 304 may include asset identification circuitry. Assetidentification circuitry may identify media assets that are related to aparticular media asset. Asset identification circuitry may include adatabase of media attributes that associates one or more mediaattributes (e.g., title, actor, director, genre, rating, keywords) witha corresponding media asset. In some implementations, the database ofmedia attributes may be stored at a remote server. To identify a mediaasset that is related to a given media asset, asset identificationcircuitry may select an attribute of the given media asset and transmita query to the database of media attributes requesting information abouta candidate media asset. The database of media attributes may determinethe candidate media asset based on a comparison of the selectedattribute and an attribute associated with the candidate media assetstored in the database of media attributes. For example, the database ofmedia assets may be stored in storage 308 and may include a datastructure associated with the selected attribute. The database of mediaattributes may retrieve the data structure to determine whetherinformation about another (candidate) media asset (e.g., its title,identification number, or any other information identifying anothermedia asset) is included in the data structure. In response todetermining that information about the candidate media asset is includedin the data structure, the database of media attributes may return thatinformation to asset identification circuitry. When the database ofmedia attributes determines that information about the candidate mediaasset is not included in the data structure, it may transmit acommunication back to asset identification circuitry indicating that nocandidate media asset was found.

A user may send instructions to control circuitry 304 using user inputinterface 310. User input interface 310 may be any suitable userinterface, such as a remote control, mouse, trackball, keypad, keyboard,touch screen, touchpad, stylus input, joystick, voice recognitioninterface, or other user input interfaces. Display 312 may be providedas a stand-alone device or integrated with other elements of userequipment device 300. For example, display 312 may be a touchscreen ortouch-sensitive display. In such circumstances, user input interface 312may be integrated with or combined with display 312. Display 312 may beone or more of a monitor, a television, a liquid crystal display (LCD)for a mobile device, amorphous silicon display, low temperature polysilicon display, electronic ink display, electrophoretic display, activematrix display, electro-wetting display, electrofluidic display, cathoderay tube display, light-emitting diode display, electroluminescentdisplay, plasma display panel, high-performance addressing display,thin-film transistor display, organic light-emitting diode display,surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED), laser television,carbon nanotubes, quantum dot display, interferometric modulatordisplay, or any other suitable equipment for displaying visual images.In some embodiments, display 312 may be HDTV-capable. In someembodiments, display 312 may be a 3D display, and the interactive mediaguidance application and any suitable content may be displayed in 3D. Avideo card or graphics card may generate the output to the display 312.The video card may offer various functions such as accelerated renderingof 3D scenes and 2D graphics, MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoding, TV output, or theability to connect multiple monitors. The video card may be anyprocessing circuitry described above in relation to control circuitry304. The video card may be integrated with the control circuitry 304.Speakers 314 may be provided as integrated with other elements of userequipment device 300 or may be stand-alone units. The audio component ofvideos and other content displayed on display 312 may be played throughspeakers 314. In some embodiments, the audio may be distributed to areceiver (not shown), which processes and outputs the audio via speakers314.

The guidance application may be implemented using any suitablearchitecture. For example, it may be a stand-alone applicationwholly-implemented on user equipment device 300. In such an approach,instructions of the application are stored locally (e.g., in storage308), and data for use by the application is downloaded on a periodicbasis (e.g., from an out-of-band feed, from an Internet resource, orusing another suitable approach). Control circuitry 304 may retrieveinstructions of the application from storage 308 and process theinstructions to generate any of the displays discussed herein. Based onthe processed instructions, control circuitry 304 may determine whataction to perform when input is received from input interface 310. Forexample, movement of a cursor on a display up/down may be indicated bythe processed instructions when input interface 310 indicates that anup/down button was selected.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application is a client-serverbased application. Data for use by a thick or thin client implemented onuser equipment device 300 is retrieved on-demand by issuing requests toa server remote to the user equipment device 300. In one example of aclient-server based guidance application, control circuitry 304 runs aweb browser that interprets web pages provided by a remote server. Forexample, the remote server may store the instructions for theapplication in a storage device. The remote server may process thestored instructions using circuitry (e.g., control circuitry 304) andgenerate the displays discussed above and below. The client device mayreceive the displays generated by the remote server and may display thecontent of the displays locally on equipment device 300. This way, theprocessing of the instructions is performed remotely by the server whilethe resulting displays are provided locally on equipment device 300.Equipment device 300 may receive inputs from the user via inputinterface 310 and transmit those inputs to the remote server forprocessing and generating the corresponding displays. For example,equipment device 300 may transmit a communication to the remote serverindicating that an up/down button was selected via input interface 310.The remote server may process instructions in accordance with that inputand generate a display of the application corresponding to the input(e.g., a display that moves a cursor up/down). The generated display isthen transmitted to equipment device 300 for presentation to the user.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application is downloaded andinterpreted or otherwise run by an interpreter or virtual machine (runby control circuitry 304). In some embodiments, the guidance applicationmay be encoded in the ETV Binary Interchange Format (EBIF), received bycontrol circuitry 304 as part of a suitable feed, and interpreted by auser agent running on control circuitry 304. For example, the guidanceapplication may be an EBIF application. In some embodiments, theguidance application may be defined by a series of JAVA-based files thatare received and run by a local virtual machine or other suitablemiddleware executed by control circuitry 304. In some of suchembodiments (e.g., those employing MPEG-2 or other digital mediaencoding schemes), the guidance application may be, for example, encodedand transmitted in an MPEG-2 object carousel with the MPEG audio andvideo packets of a program.

User equipment device 300 of FIG. 3 can be implemented in system 400 ofFIG. 4 as user television equipment 402, user computer equipment 404,wireless user communications device 406, or any other type of userequipment suitable for accessing content, such as a non-portable gamingmachine. For simplicity, these devices may be referred to hereincollectively as user equipment or user equipment devices, and may besubstantially similar to user equipment devices described above. Userequipment devices, on which a media guidance application may beimplemented, may function as a standalone device or may be part of anetwork of devices. Various network configurations of devices may beimplemented and are discussed in more detail below.

A user equipment device utilizing at least some of the system featuresdescribed above in connection with FIG. 3 may not be classified solelyas user television equipment 402, user computer equipment 404, or awireless user communications device 406. For example, user televisionequipment 402 may, like some user computer equipment 404, beInternet-enabled allowing for access to Internet content, while usercomputer equipment 404 may, like some television equipment 402, includea tuner allowing for access to television programming. The mediaguidance application may have the same layout on various different typesof user equipment or may be tailored to the display capabilities of theuser equipment. For example, on user computer equipment 404, theguidance application may be provided as a web site accessed by a webbrowser. In another example, the guidance application may be scaled downfor wireless user communications devices 406.

In system 400, there is typically more than one of each type of userequipment device but only one of each is shown in FIG. 4 to avoidovercomplicating the drawing. In addition, each user may utilize morethan one type of user equipment device and also more than one of eachtype of user equipment device.

In some embodiments, a user equipment device (e.g., user televisionequipment 402, user computer equipment 404, wireless user communicationsdevice 406) may be referred to as a “second screen device.” For example,a second screen device may supplement content presented on a first userequipment device. The content presented on the second screen device maybe any suitable content that supplements the content presented on thefirst device. In some embodiments, the second screen device provides aninterface for adjusting settings and display preferences of the firstdevice. In some embodiments, the second screen device is configured forinteracting with other second screen devices or for interacting with asocial network. The second screen device can be located in the same roomas the first device, a different room from the first device but in thesame house or building, or in a different building from the firstdevice.

The user may also set various settings to maintain consistent mediaguidance application settings across in-home devices and remote devices.Settings include those described herein, as well as channel and programfavorites, programming preferences that the guidance applicationutilizes to make programming recommendations, display preferences, andother desirable guidance settings. For example, if a user sets a channelas a favorite on, for example, the web site www.allrovi.com on theirpersonal computer at their office, the same channel would appear as afavorite on the user's in-home devices (e.g., user television equipmentand user computer equipment) as well as the user's mobile devices, ifdesired. Therefore, changes made on one user equipment device can changethe guidance experience on another user equipment device, regardless ofwhether they are the same or a different type of user equipment device.In addition, the changes made may be based on settings input by a user,as well as user activity monitored by the guidance application.

The user equipment devices may be coupled to communications network 414.Namely, user television equipment 402, user computer equipment 404, andwireless user communications device 406 are coupled to communicationsnetwork 414 via communications paths 408, 410, and 412, respectively.Communications network 414 may be one or more networks including theInternet, a mobile phone network, mobile voice or data network (e.g., a4G or LTE network), cable network, public switched telephone network, orother types of communications network or combinations of communicationsnetworks. Paths 408, 410, and 412 may separately or together include oneor more communications paths, such as, a satellite path, a fiber-opticpath, a cable path, a path that supports Internet communications (e.g.,IPTV), free-space connections (e.g., for broadcast or other wirelesssignals), or any other suitable wired or wireless communications path orcombination of such paths. Path 412 is drawn with dotted lines toindicate that in the exemplary embodiment shown in FIG. 4 it is awireless path and paths 408 and 410 are drawn as solid lines to indicatethey are wired paths (although these paths may be wireless paths, ifdesired). Communications with the user equipment devices may be providedby one or more of these communications paths, but are shown as a singlepath in FIG. 4 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing.

Although communications paths are not drawn between user equipmentdevices, these devices may communicate directly with each other viacommunication paths, such as those described above in connection withpaths 408, 410, and 412, as well as other short-range point-to-pointcommunication paths, such as USB cables, IEEE 1394 cables, wirelesspaths (e.g., Bluetooth, infrared, IEEE 802-11x, etc.), or othershort-range communication via wired or wireless paths. BLUETOOTH is acertification mark owned by Bluetooth SIG, INC. The user equipmentdevices may also communicate with each other directly through anindirect path via communications network 414.

System 400 includes content source 416 and media guidance data source418 coupled to communications network 414 via communication paths 420and 422, respectively. Paths 420 and 422 may include any of thecommunication paths described above in connection with paths 408, 410,and 412. Communications with the content source 416 and media guidancedata source 418 may be exchanged over one or more communications paths,but are shown as a single path in FIG. 4 to avoid overcomplicating thedrawing. In addition, there may be more than one of each of contentsource 416 and media guidance data source 418, but only one of each isshown in FIG. 4 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing. (The differenttypes of each of these sources are discussed below.) If desired, contentsource 416 and media guidance data source 418 may be integrated as onesource device. Although communications between sources 416 and 418 withuser equipment devices 402, 404, and 406 are shown as throughcommunications network 414, in some embodiments, sources 416 and 418 maycommunicate directly with user equipment devices 402, 404, and 406 viacommunication paths (not shown) such as those described above inconnection with paths 408, 410, and 412.

Content source 416 may include one or more types of content distributionequipment including a television distribution facility, cable systemheadend, satellite distribution facility, programming sources (e.g.,television broadcasters, such as NBC, ABC, HBO, etc.), intermediatedistribution facilities and/or servers, Internet providers, on-demandmedia servers, and other content providers. NBC is a trademark owned bythe National Broadcasting Company, Inc., ABC is a trademark owned by theAmerican Broadcasting Company, Inc., and HBO is a trademark owned by theHome Box Office, Inc. Content source 416 may be the originator ofcontent (e.g., a television broadcaster, a Webcast provider, etc.) ormay not be the originator of content (e.g., an on-demand contentprovider, an Internet provider of content of broadcast programs fordownloading, etc.). Content source 416 may include cable sources,satellite providers, on-demand providers, Internet providers,over-the-top content providers, or other providers of content. Contentsource 416 may also include a remote media server used to storedifferent types of content (including video content selected by a user),in a location remote from any of the user equipment devices. Systems andmethods for remote storage of content, and providing remotely storedcontent to user equipment are discussed in greater detail in connectionwith Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 7,761,892, issued Jul. 20, 2010, whichis hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Media guidance data source 418 may provide media guidance data, such asthe media guidance data described above. Media guidance data may beprovided to the user equipment devices using any suitable approach. Insome embodiments, the guidance application may be a stand-aloneinteractive television program guide that receives program guide datavia a data feed (e.g., a continuous feed or trickle feed).

Program schedule data and other guidance data may be provided to theuser equipment on a television channel sideband, using an in-banddigital signal, using an out-of-band digital signal, or by any othersuitable data transmission technique. Program schedule data and othermedia guidance data may be provided to user equipment on multiple analogor digital television channels.

In some embodiments, guidance data from media guidance data source 418may be provided to users' equipment using a client-server approach. Forexample, a user equipment device may pull media guidance data from aserver, or a server may push media guidance data to a user equipmentdevice. In some embodiments, a guidance application client residing onthe user's equipment may initiate sessions with source 418 to obtainguidance data when needed, e.g., when the guidance data is out of dateor when the user equipment device receives a request from the user toreceive data. Media guidance may be provided to the user equipment withany suitable frequency (e.g., continuously, daily, a user-specifiedperiod of time, a system-specified period of time, in response to arequest from user equipment, in response to a user accessing a givenmedia asset a certain number of times or at a certain frequency, etc.).Media guidance data source 418 may provide user equipment devices 402,404, and 406 the media guidance application itself or software updatesfor the media guidance application.

In some embodiments, the media guidance data may include viewer data.For example, the viewer data may include current and/or historical useractivity information (e.g., what content the user typically watches,what times of day the user watches content, whether the user interactswith a social network, at what times the user interacts with a socialnetwork to post information, what types of content the user typicallywatches (e.g., pay TV or free TV), mood, brain activity information,etc.). The media guidance data may also include subscription data. Forexample, the subscription data may identify to which sources or servicesa given user subscribes and/or to which sources or services the givenuser has previously subscribed but later terminated access (e.g.,whether the user subscribes to premium channels, whether the user hasadded a premium level of services, whether the user has increasedInternet speed). In some embodiments, the viewer data and/or thesubscription data may identify patterns of a given user for a period ofmore than one year. The media guidance data may include a model (e.g., asurvivor model) used for generating a score that indicates a likelihooda given user will terminate access to a service/source. For example, themedia guidance application may process the viewer data with thesubscription data using the model to generate a value or score thatindicates a likelihood of whether the given user will terminate accessto a particular service or source. In particular, a higher score mayindicate a higher level of confidence that the user will terminateaccess to a particular service or source. Based on the score, the mediaguidance application may generate promotions and advertisements thatentice the user to keep the particular service or source indicated bythe score as one to which the user will likely terminate access.

Media guidance applications may be, for example, stand-aloneapplications implemented on user equipment devices. For example, themedia guidance application may be implemented as software or a set ofexecutable instructions which may be stored in storage 308, and executedby control circuitry 304 of a user equipment device 300. In someembodiments, media guidance applications may be client-serverapplications where only a client application resides on the userequipment device, and server application resides on a remote server. Forexample, media guidance applications may be implemented partially as aclient application on control circuitry 304 of user equipment device 300and partially on a remote server as a server application (e.g., mediaguidance data source 418) running on control circuitry of a remoteserver. When executed by control circuitry of a remote server (such asmedia guidance data source 418), the media guidance application mayinstruct the control circuitry to generate the guidance applicationdisplays and transmit the generated displays to the user equipmentdevices. The server application may instruct the control circuitry ofthe media guidance data source 418 to transmit data for storage on theuser equipment. The client application may instruct control circuitry ofthe receiving user equipment to generate the guidance applicationdisplays.

Content and/or media guidance data delivered to user equipment devices402, 404, and 406 may be over-the-top (OTT) content. OTT contentdelivery allows Internet-enabled user devices, including any userequipment device described above, to receive content that is transferredover the Internet, including any content described above, in addition tocontent received over cable or satellite connections. OTT content isdelivered via an Internet connection provided by an Internet serviceprovider (ISP), but a third party distributes the content. The ISP maynot be responsible for the viewing abilities, copyrights, orredistribution of the content, and may only transfer IP packets providedby the OTT content provider. Examples of OTT content providers includeYOUTUBE, NETFLIX, and HULU, which provide audio and video via IPpackets. Youtube is a trademark owned by Google Inc., Netflix is atrademark owned by Netflix Inc., and Hulu is a trademark owned by Hulu,LLC. OTT content providers may additionally or alternatively providemedia guidance data described above. In addition to content and/or mediaguidance data, providers of OTT content can distribute media guidanceapplications (e.g., web-based applications or cloud-based applications),or the content can be displayed by media guidance applications stored onthe user equipment device.

Media guidance system 400 is intended to illustrate a number ofapproaches, or network configurations, by which user equipment devicesand sources of content and guidance data may communicate with each otherfor the purpose of accessing content and providing media guidance. Theembodiments described herein may be applied in any one or a subset ofthese approaches, or in a system employing other approaches fordelivering content and providing media guidance. The following fourapproaches provide specific illustrations of the generalized example ofFIG. 4.

In one approach, user equipment devices may communicate with each otherwithin a home network. User equipment devices can communicate with eachother directly via short-range point-to-point communication schemesdescribed above, via indirect paths through a hub or other similardevice provided on a home network, or via communications network 414.Each of the multiple individuals in a single home may operate differentuser equipment devices on the home network. As a result, it may bedesirable for various media guidance information or settings to becommunicated between the different user equipment devices. For example,it may be desirable for users to maintain consistent media guidanceapplication settings on different user equipment devices within a homenetwork, as described in greater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 11/179,410, filed Jul. 11, 2005. Different types ofuser equipment devices in a home network may also communicate with eachother to transmit content. For example, a user may transmit content fromuser computer equipment to a portable video player or portable musicplayer.

In a second approach, users may have multiple types of user equipment bywhich they access content and obtain media guidance. For example, someusers may have home networks that are accessed by in-home and mobiledevices. Users may control in-home devices via a media guidanceapplication implemented on a remote device. For example, users mayaccess an online media guidance application on a website via a personalcomputer at their office, or a mobile device such as a PDA orweb-enabled mobile telephone. The user may set various settings (e.g.,recordings, reminders, or other settings) on the online guidanceapplication to control the user's in-home equipment. The online guidemay control the user's equipment directly, or by communicating with amedia guidance application on the user's in-home equipment. Varioussystems and methods for user equipment devices communicating, where theuser equipment devices are in locations remote from each other, isdiscussed in, for example, Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 8,046,801, issuedOct. 25, 2011, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in itsentirety.

In a third approach, users of user equipment devices inside and outsidea home can use their media guidance application to communicate directlywith content source 416 to access content. Specifically, within a home,users of user television equipment 402 and user computer equipment 404may access the media guidance application to navigate among and locatedesirable content. Users may also access the media guidance applicationoutside of the home using wireless user communications devices 406 tonavigate among and locate desirable content.

In a fourth approach, user equipment devices may operate in a cloudcomputing environment to access cloud services. In a cloud computingenvironment, various types of computing services for content sharing,storage or distribution (e.g., video sharing sites or social networkingsites) are provided by a collection of network-accessible computing andstorage resources, referred to as “the cloud.” For example, the cloudcan include a collection of server computing devices, which may belocated centrally or at distributed locations, that provide cloud-basedservices to various types of users and devices connected via a networksuch as the Internet via communications network 414. These cloudresources may include one or more content sources 416 and one or moremedia guidance data sources 418. In addition or in the alternative, theremote computing sites may include other user equipment devices, such asuser television equipment 402, user computer equipment 404, and wirelessuser communications device 406. For example, the other user equipmentdevices may provide access to a stored copy of a video or a streamedvideo. In such embodiments, user equipment devices may operate in apeer-to-peer manner without communicating with a central server.

The cloud provides access to services, such as content storage, contentsharing, or social networking services, among other examples, as well asaccess to any content described above, for user equipment devices.Services can be provided in the cloud through cloud computing serviceproviders, or through other providers of online services. For example,the cloud-based services can include a content storage service, acontent sharing site, a social networking site, or other services viawhich user-sourced content is distributed for viewing by others onconnected devices. These cloud-based services may allow a user equipmentdevice to store content to the cloud and to receive content from thecloud rather than storing content locally and accessing locally-storedcontent.

A user may use various content capture devices, such as camcorders,digital cameras with video mode, audio recorders, mobile phones, andhandheld computing devices, to record content. The user can uploadcontent to a content storage service on the cloud either directly, forexample, from user computer equipment 404 or wireless usercommunications device 406 having content capture feature. Alternatively,the user can first transfer the content to a user equipment device, suchas user computer equipment 404. The user equipment device storing thecontent uploads the content to the cloud using a data transmissionservice on communications network 414. In some embodiments, the userequipment device itself is a cloud resource, and other user equipmentdevices can access the content directly from the user equipment deviceon which the user stored the content.

Cloud resources may be accessed by a user equipment device using, forexample, a web browser, a media guidance application, a desktopapplication, a mobile application, and/or any combination of accessapplications of the same. The user equipment device may be a cloudclient that relies on cloud computing for application delivery, or theuser equipment device may have some functionality without access tocloud resources. For example, some applications running on the userequipment device may be cloud applications, i.e., applications deliveredas a service over the Internet, while other applications may be storedand run on the user equipment device. In some embodiments, a user devicemay receive content from multiple cloud resources simultaneously. Forexample, a user device can stream audio from one cloud resource whiledownloading content from a second cloud resource. Or a user device candownload content from multiple cloud resources for more efficientdownloading. In some embodiments, user equipment devices can use cloudresources for processing operations such as the processing operationsperformed by processing circuitry described in relation to FIG. 3.

FIG. 5 shows an illustrative display screen 500 of an interactive mediaguidance application in accordance with another embodiment of thedisclosure. Screen 500 includes new content region 501, previouslyaccessed content region 513, related content region 515, and productpromotion region 520. In some implementations, user interface elementsof display screen 500 may correspond to media assets and may begenerated according to fixed rules. The same type of data may be loadedfor each user interface element of display screen 500. For example, alluser interface elements may have the same layout and may provide asimilar type of functionality, regardless of user's history ofinteracting with a particular user interface element or accessing amedia asset that may be associated with the particular user interfaceelement. For example, cover art, title and a brief description of amedia asset may be loaded and generated for display for every singleuser interface element in a media guidance display screen 500. In someembodiments, loading of media guide data and generation of a userinterface element for a given media asset may be performed based on userhistory of accessing the given media asset or another media asset thatis related to the given media asset.

In some implementations, display screen 500 may be displayed when (orafter) control circuitry 304 receives a user selection of televisionlistings option 204 or another one of the selectable options 202 (FIG.2). In some implementations, display screen 500 may be displayed whenthe user manually identifies a content source (e.g., selects aparticular on demand media provider). Control circuitry 304 may access(e.g., tune to or navigate to) the content source identified by the useror corresponding to one of the selectable options 202 selected by theuser.

New content region 501, previously accessed content region 513 andrelated content region 515 may include a user interface elementcorresponding to a particular media asset. The user interface elementmay provide information about the particular media asset as well asprovide an interactive capability associated with the media asset. Theparticular media asset represented by a respective user interfaceelement may be a linear or non-linear media asset. For example, in someimplementations, the media asset may be a live broadcast of an event. Insome embodiments, the user interface element may include one or morevisual objects arranged in a particular order. Visual objects may bepositioned next to each other or overlaid on top of each other. Anygiven visual object may provide a specific piece of information aboutthe media asset or enable a particular interactive feature. A visualobject may include cover art, title, text description, rating or reviewof the media asset, a button (e.g., to play, record or set a reminderfor the media asset, to share the media asset with another user), a link(e.g., to a website or another media asset) or any other informationthat is related to the media asset or that is relevant to the user inview of user preferences.

For example, user interface element 503 may be associated with the TVseries “Breaking Bad.” User interface element 503 may include cover art502 for the series or a particular episode of “Breaking Bad,” a title504 of the series or episode, a brief description 506 of the series orepisode, a rating 512, as well as interactive features 508 and 510 thatallow the user to access reviews and see more information about theseries or episode.

Previously accessed content region 513 may include user interfaceelements corresponding to those media assets that the user has accessedin the past. In some implementations, user interface elements associatedwith previously accessed media assets may include the same types ofvisual objects and may have the same layout as other user interfaceelements, such as user interface element 503 discussed above.

Prior to generating the display screen 500 for display on user equipmentdevice 300, control circuitry 304 may automatically retrieve a viewinghistory of the user from storage 308. For example, control circuitry 304may retrieve a data structure associated with the viewing history fromstorage 308. Alternatively, control circuitry 304 may send a request toa remote source for information associated with the viewing history. Theinformation associated with viewing history may include titleinformation, series information, or episode information of a media assetpreviously accessed by the user, the time at which the user accessed themedia last, the frequency at which the user accesses the media asset,the number of times the user has accessed the media asset, genre orcategory associated with the media asset, attributes of the media asset,or any other data that is associated with the media asset previouslyaccessed by the user, or any combination of the same. Upon retrieval ofthe viewing history, control circuitry 304 may process the viewinghistory to determine which media assets have been viewed recently orduring a particular time interval in the past. For example, controlcircuitry 304 may determine that an input requesting to access anepisode of “Family Guy” has been received from the user two days ago.Control circuitry 304 may then generate an interface element 514including cover art, title, a brief description and one or moreinteractive features associated with “Family Guy” and display userinterface element 514 in previously accessed content region 513.Similarly, control circuitry 304 may determine that the user watched“Weeds” last week. Control circuitry 304 may then generate an interfaceelement 517 including cover art, title, a brief description and one ormore interactive features associated with “Weeds” and display userinterface element 517 in previously accessed content region 513.

Control circuitry 304 may identify media assets that are related tomedia assets associated with any user interface element to be presentedin the display screen 500, including user interface elements to bedisplayed in new content region 501 and recent content region 513. Insome embodiments, control circuitry 304 may select an attribute (e.g.,title, director, creator, producer, actor, year of release, genre,category, a keyword associated with a description of the media asset, orany other attribute) of a media asset associated with a user interfaceelement to be presented in display screen 500 and cross-reference thatattribute with a database of media attributes to obtain a candidatemedia asset that has a similar attribute and that is also going to bepresented in display screen 500. The database of media attributes may bestored either locally, e.g., in storage 308 of user equipment device orat a local media server, or it may be stored at a remote location, e.g.,at a media guidance application server or a streaming media server. Inorder to cross-reference the database, control circuitry 304 may send aquery to the database requesting to identify a candidate media assetthat has the same attribute as the given media asset. For example, thegiven media asset associated with user interface element 514 may be anepisode of “Family Guy.” Accordingly, control circuitry 304 may selectan attribute associated with the show “Family Guy” (e.g., the name ofthe creator Seth MacFarlane) and send a request to a media attributedatabase to identify another show that has a similar attribute (e.g.,another show created by Seth MacFarlane) and that is going to bepresented in display screen 500. In some embodiments, the mediaattribute database may retrieve a data structure associated with theattribute included in the request. The media attribute database may thendetermine that another media asset (e.g., the movie “Ted”) is includedin the data structure and may designate this media asset as thecandidate media asset. Information about the candidate media asset, suchas its title, a media guidance identification number, or any otherattribute associated with the media asset or identifying the media assetmay be transmitted by the media attribute database back to controlcircuitry 304. Upon receipt of information about the candidate mediaasset, control circuitry 304 may generate a corresponding user interfaceelement 516.

Similarly, control circuitry 304 may identify media assets that arerelated to any media asset previously accessed by the user. In someembodiments, control circuitry 304 may select an attribute (e.g., title,director, creator, producer, actor, year of release, genre, category, akeyword associated with a description of the media asset, or any otherattribute) of a given media asset and cross-reference that attributewith a database of media attributes to obtain a candidate media assetthat has a similar attribute. The database of media attributes may bestored either locally, e.g., in storage 308 of user equipment device orat a local media server, or it may be stored at a remote location, e.g.,at a media guidance application server or a streaming media server. Inorder to cross-reference the database, control circuitry 304 may send aquery to the database requesting to identify a candidate media assetthat has the same attribute as the given media asset. For example, thegiven media asset may be “Ted.” Accordingly, control circuitry 304 mayselect an attribute associated with “Ted” (e.g., the name of the creatorSeth MacFarlane) and send a request to a media attribute database toidentify another show having a similar attribute (e.g., another showcreated by Seth MacFarlane).

In some implementations, the media attribute database may retrieve adata structure associated with the attribute included in the request.The media attribute database may then determine that another media asset(e.g., “Family Guy”) is included in the data structure and may designatethis media asset as the candidate media asset. Information about thecandidate media asset, such as its title, a media guidanceidentification number, or any other attribute associated with the mediaasset or identifying the media asset may be transmitted by the mediaattribute database back to control circuitry 304. Upon receipt ofinformation about the candidate media asset, control circuitry 304 maydetermine whether or not the candidate media asset is a related mediaasset. For example, control circuitry 304 may compare an attribute ofthe candidate media asset to a user preference to determine if theattribute matches the user preference. In response to determining thatthe candidate media asset is a related media asset, control circuitry304 may determine whether the user has accessed the related media assetin the past or in the recent past. For example, control circuitry 304may retrieve viewing history of the user or viewing history for therelated media asset itself and determine the user has accessed therelated media asset two days ago.

In some embodiments, the media attribute database may determine thatmore than one media asset with a matching attribute are found in thedatabase. Accordingly, the media attribute database may transmit arelated content list including information about all media assets foundto match the attribute received in the request to identify related mediaassets. For example, “Ted” and “American Dad!” may be identified asmedia assets related to “Family Guy.” Accordingly, user interfaceelements 516 and 518 including cover art, title, a brief description andone or more interactive features for “Ted” and “American Dad!” may bedisplayed in related content region 515. In some implementations, therequest sent by control circuitry 304 may include the selected attributeof the given media asset and any other information associated with thegiven media asset or with the user profile. For example, the request mayinclude a second attribute of the given media asset to help the mediaattribute database to narrow down the search for related media assets.

In some implementations, control circuitry 304 may retrieve the userprofile information and determine which of the candidate media assetsincluded in the related content list matches criteria set by the userprofile. For example, the user profile may indicate a user's strongpreference for animated sitcoms and a weak preference for film comedies.Accordingly, control circuitry 304 may eliminate from the relatedcontent list each candidate media asset which is associated with a filmcomedy characteristic. For example, if the related content list includes“The Cleveland Show,” “American Dad!” and “Ted,” all created or directedby Seth MacFarlane, control circuitry 304 may eliminate “Ted” from thelist because it is a film comedy. Similarly, the viewing history in theuser profile may indicate that the user watches action movies more thanany other category of movies. Accordingly, control circuitry 304 mayeliminate from the related content list each related content which isassociated with a characteristic that is not action. The profile mayindicate that the user has a strong interest in another user'spreference for content. In such circumstances, control circuitry 304 mayretrieve the viewing history of another user and determine what type ofcontent that user watches most. Control circuitry 304 may eliminate fromthe related content list any content that does not share characteristicswith the type of content another user watches.

Control circuitry 304 may sort or organize the related content listaccording to the strength of the relationship between each candidatemedia asset in the list with the given media asset as well as theprofile associated with the user. For example, the candidate media assetat the top of the list may have the strongest match between the criteriaset by the profile and the selected attribute, whereas the candidatemedia asset at the bottom of the list may have the weakest match betweenthe criteria set by the profile and the selected attribute.

In some implementations, product promotion region 520 may include a userinterface element promoting a product. The product may be related to oneof the media assets associated with any one of user interface elementsin new content region 501, recent content region 513, or suggestedcontent region 515. In some embodiments, the user interface elementpromoting the product may include the same types of visual objects andmay have the same layout as other user interface elements promotingother products, regardless of user's history of purchasing relatedproducts or accessing related media assets.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 304 may determine that theproduct is related to a media asset and also matches user preferencesstored in the user profile. For example, if user interface element 503includes information about an episode of “Breaking Bad” and the user isinterested in small accessories, control circuitry 304 may determinethat a product such as the Teddy Bear Eye Key Chain might be ofparticular interest to the user. Accordingly, control circuitry 304 maycause a product promotion user interface element comprising one or morevisual objects to be displayed in the product promotion region 520. Forexample, the product promotion user interface element may include animage of the product 522, a brief description of the product 524, itsprice 526, and an interactive feature 528 associated with the product.Control circuitry 304 may implement any suitable interactive featureassociated with the product, such as viewing more information about theproduct, recommending the product to a friend or purchasing the product.

In some implementations, control circuitry 304 may determine that theproduct is not related to any media assets presented in the displayscreen 500 and that the product does not match any user preferences.However, the product may match a preference of a user's friend. If theuser has previously indicated a strong liking of friend's preferences,then information about the product may be displayed in product promotionregion 520. In some implementations, the product promotion may beassociated with a product or content that requires purchaseauthorization. In such scenarios, control circuitry 304 may query theuser for purchase information (e.g., credit card information or ausername and password) before receiving authorization to access theselected product or content.

In some embodiments, instead of loading media guide data and generatinguser interface elements according to fixed rules, control circuitry 304may employ flexible rules to load media guide data, generate userinterface elements, or both. For example, user's preferences, user'sviewing history, preferences of user's friends, viewing histories ofuser's friends, or any combination thereof, may be used in order tomaximize available bandwidth for transmission of media assets and mediaasset descriptions as well as to efficiently generate a media guidancedisplay screen that provides media guide data and functionality that arerelevant to the user. These and other embodiments are discussed below inrelation to FIGS. 6-7.

As used herein, the terms “media asset description” and “assetdescription” are used interchangeably and may refer to any informationidentifying, describing or otherwise characterizing a media asset. Anasset description may include one or more descriptive elements. Adescriptive element may include cover art, title, year, genre, episodenumber, series number, director, producer, creator, writer, member ofthe cast, album art, review, rating, price, summary, synopsis, critique,a portion of the media asset such as a preview or an image or a frame ofthe media asset, a portion of an audio included in the media asset, orany combination thereof, including a combination that does not includethe title of the media asset. The asset description may be provided inany form or format. For example, the asset description may be providedas part of a text file, a markup language file (e.g., an HTML page or anXML file), as a data structure describing a descriptive element includedin the asset description, or in any other suitable form or format. Theasset description may include multiple files or data structures thatidentify descriptive elements of the asset description and may includeparameters associated with display properties of descriptive elements(e.g., their size, color, relative or absolute position, brightness oropaqueness, etc.). For example, if the media asset is the first episodeof the TV series “Breaking Bad,” an asset description corresponding tothe first episode may include cover art, title of the first episode“Pilot,” names of main actors Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul and Anna Gunn,and a brief text description of the TV series. The asset descriptioncorresponding to the first episode may be provided as two files: a JPEGimage of the cover art, and an XML file including the title “Pilot,”names Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul, Anna Gunn, a brief text description ofthe TV series, and display properties associated with the JPEG image(e.g., its size in pixels and relative or absolute location on a mediaguidance display screen), and display properties associated with thetitle, names and brief text description (e.g., type of font, font colorand size).

FIGS. 6 and 7 show illustrative display screens of providing aninteractive media guidance application based on user history ofaccessing a media asset in accordance with embodiments of thedisclosure. Prior to generating display screens 600 (or 700), controlcircuitry 304 may receive multiple asset descriptions associated with agiven media asset. Each asset description may provide a different amountof information about the given media asset. For example, a first assetdescription may include only cover art of the given media asset; asecond asset description may include both cover art and a brief textdescription; a third asset description may include title informationonly or a brief text description only, etc. Control circuitry 304 mayparse each asset description to extract and generate visual objects fora user interface element associated with the given media asset. Eitherall asset descriptions or any proper subset of asset descriptions may bestored in storage 308 of user equipment 300 for retrieval at a latertime, e.g., upon system startup or in response to receiving a user inputsuch as an input selecting television listings 204 (FIG. 2).

In some implementations, control circuitry 304 may select and retrievean asset description for a particular media asset from storage 308 basedon the user's history of accessing that particular media asset or arelated media asset in the past. For example, if the user has alreadyviewed an episode of a particular TV show, the user may not beinterested in seeing a full description of that TV show or even adescription of a new episode that the user has not yet seen. Instead,the user may want to see a more concise description or a partialdescription, e.g., a description that includes only cover art, episodenumber, title, date, or any other piece of information about the mediaasset, or any combination thereof. Accordingly, control circuitry 304may retrieve user's viewing history and generate a media guidancedisplay screen 600 (or 700) based on the user's viewing history in orderto make it compact, intuitive and easy to navigate for the user. Forexample, if control circuitry 304 determines that the user has alreadywatched an episode of “Breaking Bad,” it may generate user interfaceelement 602 including only cover art (or user interface element 704including only title) instead of user interface element 503 comprisingcover art 502, title 504, brief description 506, rating 512, as well asinteractive features 508 and 510, as discussed above in connection withFIG. 5.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 304 may determine the number oftimes that the user has accessed a particular media asset or a pluralityof media assets (e.g., multiple episodes of a TV series) in order toselect an asset description that best matches user's viewing history andhabits. A different asset description (and a different user interfaceelement) may be associated with a different number of times the user hasaccessed the particular media asset. This allows the media guidanceapplication to adapt to user's behavior over time and generateprogressively simpler and more intuitive media guidance display screens.For example, control circuitry 304 may store three asset descriptionsfor “Breaking Bad” in a data structure associated with “Breaking Bad” instorage 308. If the user has viewed only one episode of “Breaking Bad,”control circuitry 304 may retrieve the data structure associated with“Breaking Bad” and select a first asset description consisting, forexample, of cover art, a title, a brief description, and an interactivefeature that allows the user to access additional information about theseries. However, if the user has watched two episodes of “Breaking Bad,”then control circuitry 304 may select a second asset descriptionconsisting, for example, of only cover art, a title and a briefdescription. Similarly, if the user has seen three episodes of “BreakingBad,” then control circuitry 304 may select a third asset descriptionconsisting, for example, of only cover art and title. Different assetdescription may be also selected based on the frequency with which theuser accesses a media asset or based on how recently the user hasaccessed a media asset. For example, if the user has accessed an episodeof “Breaking Bad” only yesterday, a user interface element for the nextepisode or a series may not include a text description or a link to avisual recap. However, if the user had a particularly busy month at workand did not have time to watch an episode of “Breaking Bad” that entiremonth, a text description or a visual recap may be included, e.g., inorder to help the user remember what happened in the show leading up tothe new episode.

In some implementations, instead of receiving multiple assetdescriptions and selecting a different asset description based on user'sviewing history, control circuitry 304 may receive a single descriptionof the media asset comprising multiple pieces of information. Prior togenerating a user interface element, control circuitry 304 may parse thesingle description and select particular pieces of information (e.g.,cover art) or portions of these pieces of information to be included inthe user interface element. For example, control circuitry 304 may parsea full text description to select particular portions of the full textdescription in order to create a brief summary.

In some implementations, a user interface element of a first media assetmay be generated or modified based on user's history of accessing asecond media asset that is related to the first media asset. A candidatemedia asset may be designated as a related media asset based oncharacteristics stored in the user profile, a relationship between thefirst media asset and the candidate media assets, or both. For example,if the user has previously indicated a strong interest in TV shows aboutdrugs, control circuitry 304 may identify the TV show “Breaking Bad” asbeing related to the TV show “Weeds” previously accessed by the user.Although “Breaking Bad” may not have been previously accessed by theuser, control circuitry 304 may select an asset description for it basedon the number of times or the frequency with which the user has accessed“Weeds.” Accordingly, user interface element 602 in new content region601 (or element 704 in new content region 701) may not include a fulldescription of “Breaking Bad.” Similarly, if user interface element 618(720) for a media asset (e.g., “Family Guy”) was generated using anasset description selected based on the user accessing that media assetthree times, other user interface elements, including user interfaceelements 622 and 624 in related content region 621 (or 726 and 730 inrelated content region 723) may be generated as if media assetsassociated with these user interface elements (e.g., “Ted” and “AmericanDad!”) have also been accessed three times.

User interface elements of FIGS. 6 and 7 should be contrasted with userinterface elements of FIG. 5. Whereas all user interface elements ofFIG. 5 are generated according to the same rules (e.g., they allincorporate extensive descriptions including cover art, titles, andbrief descriptions), user interface elements of FIGS. 6-7 are generatedbased on user's history of accessing related media assets. For example,because the user previously accessed an episode of “Weeds,” userinterface element 602 associated with “Breaking Bad” does not include anentire description and instead incorporates cover art only. At the sametime, user element 605 does include an extensive description because theuser has not watched any media assets related to “Grey's Anatomy.”Similarly, user interface element 707 of FIG. 7 includes a fulldescription of “Grey's Anatomy,” while user element 704 incorporatesonly the tile of “Breaking Bad.”

In some implementations, in order to generate or modify a first userinterface element associated with the first media asset based on user'shistory of accessing a second media asset that is related to the firstmedia asset, control circuitry 304 may retrieve a data structure that isassociated with the first user interface element from storage 308.Control circuitry 304 may parse the data structure to identify the firstmedia asset associated with the first user interface element. Forexample, control circuitry 304 may identify “Ted” as being associatedwith the first user interface element. In response to identifying thefirst media asset, control circuitry 304 may query the media attributedatabase to select an attribute of the first media asset. For example,control circuitry 304 may select the name of the creator of “Ted” SethMacFarlane. After selecting the attribute of the first media asset,control circuitry 304 may retrieve information about a second mediaasset previously accessed by the user and related to the first mediaasset (e.g., “Family Guy”) from storage 308. Information about thesecond media asset previously accessed by the user and related to thefirst media asset may include a title, an identification numbercorresponding to the second media asset or any data structure comprisingan attribute identifying the second media asset. For example, controlcircuitry 304 may retrieve a data structure comprising the title “FamilyGuy.” In some implementations, control circuitry 304 may send a requestto a remote server to obtain information about the second media assetpreviously accessed by the user and related to the first media asset.

In response to obtaining information about the second media asset,control circuitry 304 may retrieve a data structure comprising multipleasset descriptions of the first media asset from storage 308. Controlcircuitry 304 may then select one of the descriptions in the datastructure based on user's history of accessing the second media asset.For example, two asset descriptions for “Ted” may be stored in storage308, with the first description comprising cover art and title and thesecond description comprising only cover art. In response to determiningthat the user has watched “Family Guy” more than 100 times, controlcircuitry 304 may retrieve both descriptions of “Ted” and select onlyone asset description, e.g., the second asset description.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 304 may generate a user interfaceelement for the first media asset so that it includes a similar numberor arrangement of visual objects as the second related media asset. Forexample, if only cover art (or only title) is included in user interfaceelement 618 (or 720), user interface elements 622 and 624 (or 726 and730) may also include only cover art (or only title). At the same time,user interface elements for shows that are not related to any mediaassets previously accessed by the user or shows that do not matchcharacteristics of the user profile may include a more detaileddescription with more visual objects and may be displayed adjacent touser interface elements of shows found to be related to other mediaassets or of relevance to the user. For example, user interface element605 (or 707) associated with an unrelated show (e.g., “Grey's Anatomy”)may include multiple visual objects 606, 608, 610, 612, 614, 616 (or708, 710, 712, 714, 716, 718) corresponding to cover art, title, briefdescription, rating and interactive features associated with theunrelated show. User interface element 605 (or 707) may be displayednext to user interface element 602 (or 704) of a show found to berelated to previously accessed media assets or found to matchcharacteristics of the user profile.

In certain implementations, visual objects for a user interface elementmay be selected based on whether a second user has recommended a mediaasset or a product to the user of the media guidance application. Thesecond user may be another user of the media guidance application, e.g.,another user using the same user equipment device 300, or another userlocated remotely. The second user may be related to the first user,e.g., the second user may be identified as a friend or a relative in theuser profile of the media guidance application or a user profile of athird party provider (e.g., Facebook or Google+). In someimplementations, control circuitry 304 may send a request to a remoteserver or authenticate the user with a third party provider using user'scredentials to obtain a recommendation list of media assets or productsrecommended by other users. Upon receipt of the recommendation list,control circuitry 304 may store it in storage 308 and may parse it toobtain visual objects needed to generate user interface elementsassociated with recommended media assets and products, including, forexample user interface elements 622 and 624 (or 726 and 730) of therelated content region 621 (or 723), and user interface element 626 (or732) of the product promotion region 629 (or 731).

In some implementations, control circuitry 304 may determine the numberof times another user has commented, expressed a liking or posted amessage about a particular media asset or product. Control circuitry 304may compare that number to a threshold (that may be set automatically orby the user) and select an asset description based on whether the numberexceeds that threshold. For example, if a user's friend is absolutelyobsessed with the TV show “Breaking Bad” and commented more than tentimes that he would like to purchase an official Teddy Bear Eye KeyChain on Facebook, the user of the media guidance application systemmight be already familiar with the details of the Teddy Bear Eye KeyChain (e.g., its price). Accordingly, it may make little sense toinclude a full description of this particular product in the productpromotion region 629 (or 731) and control circuitry 304 may select amore concise description, including for example only an image of the keychain and an interactive feature allowing the user to purchase it.

In some implementations, control circuitry 304 may determine the numberof user's friends who have commented, expressed a liking or posted amessage about a particular media asset. It may then compare that numberto a threshold (that may be set automatically or by the user) and selectan asset description based on whether the number exceeds that threshold.For example, if more than 25 user's friends have indicated that theyliked a particular media asset (e.g., the last episode of a M*A*S*H),the user might be familiar with the general subject matter of that mediaasset. Accordingly, control circuitry 304 may select a minimalistdescription of the media asset (e.g., a title) to be included in themedia guidance application display screen 700, for example as a userinterface element 706.

In some embodiments, display properties of user interface elements orvisual objects included in user interface elements may be dynamicallyadjusted based on user's viewing history. Display properties of visualobjects may include their size, font, font size, opaqueness or any otherdisplay property. In some implementations, the visual objects may berearranged from a first order to a second order specifying theirposition relative to each other. For example, if a media assetassociated with a user interface element has never been accessed by theuser before, cover art may be shown in a first size. However, if theuser has already accessed the media asset or if the media asset isrelated to another media asset previously accessed by the user, thencover art may be shown in a second size, which is smaller than the firstsize.

For example, control circuitry 304 may adjust display properties of afirst user interface element associated with the first media asset basedon user's history of accessing a second media asset that is related tothe first media asset. Control circuitry 304 may retrieve a datastructure that is associated with the first user interface element fromstorage 308. Control circuitry 304 may parse the data structure toidentify the first media asset associated with the first user interfaceelement. For example, control circuitry 304 may identify “Ted” as beingassociated with the first user interface element. In response toidentifying the first media asset, control circuitry 304 may query themedia attribute database to select an attribute of the first mediaasset. For example, control circuitry 304 may select the name of thecreator of “Ted” Seth MacFarlane. After selecting the attribute of thefirst media asset, control circuitry 304 may retrieve information abouta second media asset previously accessed by the user and related to thefirst media asset (e.g., “Family Guy”) from storage 308. Informationabout the second media asset previously accessed by the user and relatedto the first media asset may include a title, an identification numbercorresponding to the second media asset or any data structure comprisingan attribute identifying the second media asset. For example, controlcircuitry 304 may retrieve a data structure comprising the title “FamilyGuy.” In some implementations, control circuitry 304 may send a requestto a remote server to obtain information about the second media assetpreviously accessed by the user and related to the first media asset.

In response to obtaining information about the second media asset,control circuitry 304 may retrieve a data structure comprising displayproperties of the first user interface element from storage 308. Controlcircuitry 304 may then change one or more display properties of thefirst user interface element in the data structure based on user'shistory of accessing the second media asset. For example, in response todetermining that the user has watched “Family Guy” more than 100 times,control circuitry 304 may update the data structure to change the sizeof the cover art for “Ted.”

In some embodiments, control circuitry 304 may determine which userinterface elements or program listings are either being displayed or aregoing to be displayed on a media guidance display screen. For example,control circuitry 304 may retrieve a data structure listing all elementspresented or scheduled to be presented on the media guidance displayscreen from storage 308. For each user interface element listed in thedata structure, control circuitry 304 may then identify a related mediaasset using any one of the embodiments described above in relation tofinding a candidate media asset and designating it as related mediaasset. Once a related media asset is found, control circuitry 304 mayselect appropriate display properties for the corresponding userinterface element being displayed or scheduled to be displayed based onthe user history of accessing the related media asset. For example, twouser interface elements corresponding to “Breaking Bad” and “AmericanDad” may be scheduled to be shown on a media guidance display screen. Ifit is determined that “Weeds” is related to “Breaking Bad” and the userhas seen over 20 episodes of Weeds, then only cover art may be shown inthe user interface element of “Breaking Bad.” Similarly, if “Ted” isdetermined to be related to “American Dad!,” but the user has neverwatches a sitcom before, then cover art and a brief description may beincluded in the user interface element of “American Dad!”

In some implementations, all user interface elements of a media guidancedisplay screen may have the same display properties and may include thesame number of visual objects when presented to the user (e.g., whenpresented to the user for the first time. If a user requests furtherinformation about a media asset associated with a given user interfaceelement, then that user interface may be modified (e.g., to includefewer visual objects, a different description or by changing displayproperties of visual objects). In some embodiments, user interfaceelements of media assets related to the media asset for which the userrequested addition information may be modified as well. For example, twouser interface elements corresponding to two related shows “Family Guy”and “American Dad!” may be displayed with respective cover art and afull text description of the respective TV show. If a user requests moreinformation about “Family Guy,” then the user interface element for“American Dad!” may be modified to substitute its full text descriptionwith a shorter description (e.g. “another sitcom by Seth MacFarlane”).Alternatively, the user interface of “American Dad!” may be modified toinclude cover art only, thereby visually identifying “American Dad!” asa show that is related to “Family Guy.”

FIG. 8 is a diagram of a process 800 for loading interactive media guidedata based on user history in accordance with embodiments of thedisclosure. At step 802, a plurality of asset descriptions associatedwith a first media asset is received. For example, the first media assetmay be “American Dad!” and a plurality of asset descriptions may includea description having cover art only and another description having bothcover art and a brief text description of “American Dad!” In someembodiments, asset descriptions may be received from a remote server(such as media guidance data source 418 of FIG. 4).

At step 804, a first attribute associated with the first media asset isselected. The first attribute may be any attribute that defines oridentifies the content of the first media asset. For example, the firstattribute may be the name of the creator of “American Dad!” SethMacFarlane.

At step 806, the first attribute is cross-referenced with a database toobtain a candidate media asset. For example control circuitry 304 mayaccess a database from storage 308 and process a data structureassociated with the first attribute to retrieve or extract informationabout a candidate media asset having a similar attribute. In someimplementations, control circuitry 304 may search, using the firstattribute, the Internet or a website, such as IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes toidentify a candidate media asset.

At step 808, a determination is made as to whether the candidate assethas been found. When the candidate asset has been found in the database,the process proceeds to step 810, otherwise the process proceeds to step804. For example, control circuitry 304 may process a data structurereturned by the database and determine that the data structure containsa media asset different from the first media asset (e.g., the mediaasset different from the first media asset “American Dad!” may be“Family Guy” or “Ted,” also created by Seth MacFarlane).

At step 810, a determination is made as to whether a value ofrelatedness between the first media asset and the candidate media assetexceeds a relatedness threshold (which may be set by a user). Forexample, control circuitry 304 may select a second attribute associatedwith the first media asset and compare it with a candidate attributeassociated with the candidate media asset. When the value of relatednessbetween the first media asset and the candidate media asset exceeds therelatedness threshold, the process proceeds to step 812, otherwise theprocess proceeds to step 806. For example, if the second attributeassociated with the first media asset is a genre “sitcom,” then if thecandidate media asset is “Ted,” the process proceeds to step 806, since“Ted” is of different genre, namely “film comedy.” In some embodiments,control circuitry 304 may compute a Euclidian distance or score (orother mathematical function) between attributes of a first media assetand the candidate media asset (e.g., distance between keywordsdescribing the content of each media asset). When the computed distanceor score exceeds a threshold value (which may be set by a user), controlcircuitry 304 may determine that the value of relatedness between thefirst media asset and the candidate media asset exceeds the relatednessthreshold.

At step 812, the candidate media asset is designated as the second mediaasset.

At step 814, the plurality of asset descriptions is processed in orderto identify a first asset description having a first number of elementsand a second asset description having a second number of elements. Insome embodiments, the first number of elements may be smaller than thesecond number of elements. For example, control circuitry 304 mayidentify a first asset description having only an image (e.g., cover artfor “American Dad!”) and a second asset description having an image anda brief text description of the media asset.

At step 816, a number of times a user has previously accessed the secondmedia asset is determined. In some implementations, control circuitry304 may retrieve user's viewing history from storage 308 and process itin order to determine the number of times.

At step 818, a determination is made as to whether the number of timesexceeds the threshold. In some implementations, the threshold may be setby the user. When the number of times exceeds the threshold, the processproceeds to step 820, otherwise the process proceeds to step 822.

At step 820, the second asset description is selected. For example, thesecond asset description may include cover art and a brief textdescription for “American Dad!” In some implementations, controlcircuitry 304 may retrieve multiple asset descriptions associated with“American Dad!” from storage 308 (FIG. 3) and select the seconddescription.

At step 822, the first asset description is selected. For example, thefirst asset description may include only cover art for “American Dad!”In some implementations, control circuitry 304 may retrieve multipleasset descriptions associated with “American Dad!” from storage 308(FIG. 3) and select the first description.

At step 824, data for the first media asset is loaded. In someimplementations, data for the first media asset includes the selectedasset description.

At step 826, the selected asset description and an asset descriptioncorresponding to the second media asset are generated for display in asame area of an interactive media guide. For example, control circuitry304 may generate the selected asset description and an asset descriptioncorresponding to the second media asset as part of user interfaceelements 514 and 518 (FIG. 5).

FIG. 9 is a diagram of a process 900 for generating for display aninteractive media guide based on user behavior in accordance withembodiments of the disclosure. At step 902, a first user interfaceelement associated with a first media asset not previously accessed by auser is generated for display. For example, the first media asset notpreviously accessed by the user may be an episode of the TV series“Grey's Anatomy” and the first user interface element may be userinterface element 605 (FIG. 6).

At step 904, information about a third media asset previously accessedby the user is retrieved. For example, the third media asset may be“Family Guy”. In some implementations, control circuitry 304 mayretrieve the information about the third media asset from storage 308.In some embodiments, control circuitry 304 may query a remote server forinformation about the third media asset.

At step 906, a first attribute associated with the third media asset isselected. The first attribute may be any attribute that defines oridentifies the content of the third media asset. For example, the firstattribute may be the name of the creator of “Family Guy” Seth MacFarlane

At step 908, the first attribute is cross-referenced with a database toobtain a candidate media asset. For example control circuitry 304 mayaccess a database from storage 308 and process a data structureassociated with the first attribute to retrieve or extract informationabout a candidate media asset having a similar attribute. In someimplementations, control circuitry 304 may search, using the firstattribute, the Internet or a website, such as IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes toidentify a candidate media asset.

At step 910, a determination is made as to whether the candidate assethas been found. When the candidate asset has been found in the database,the process proceeds to step 912, otherwise the process proceeds to step906. For example, control circuitry 304 may process a data structurereturned by the database and determine that the data structure containsa media asset different from the third media asset (e.g., the mediaasset different from the third media asset “Family Guy” may be “AmericanDad!” or “Ted,” also created by Seth MacFarlane).

At step 912, a determination is made as to whether a value ofrelatedness between the third media asset and the candidate media assetexceeds a relatedness threshold (which may be set by a user). Forexample, control circuitry 304 may select a second attribute associatedwith the third media asset and compare it with a candidate attributeassociated with the candidate media asset. When the value of relatednessbetween the third media asset and the candidate media asset exceeds therelatedness threshold, the process proceeds to step 914, otherwise theprocess proceeds to step 908. For example, if the second attributeassociated with the third media asset is a genre “sitcom,” then if thecandidate media asset is “Ted,” the process proceeds to step 908, since“Ted” is of different genre, namely “film comedy.” In some embodiments,control circuitry 304 may compute a Euclidian distance or score (orother mathematical function) between attributes of a third media assetand the candidate media asset (e.g., distance between keywordsdescribing the content of each media asset). When the computed distanceor score exceeds a threshold value (which may be set by a user), controlcircuitry 304 may determine that the value of relatedness between thethird media asset and the candidate media asset exceeds the relatednessthreshold.

At step 914, the candidate media asset is designated as the second mediaasset. For example, the candidate media asset designated as the secondmedia assed may be “American Dad!.”

At step 916, a plurality of visual objects included in a second userinterface element that is associated with the second media asset isidentified. For example, the plurality of visual objects may includecover art, title and a brief description of the second media asset(e.g., “American Dad!”). In some implementations, control circuitry 304may retrieve a data structure from storage 308 specifying the pluralityof visual objects included in the second user interface element.

At step 918, a first order corresponding to the arrangement of theplurality of visual objects may be retrieved. For example, the firstorder may indicate that cover art, title and a brief description for“American Dad!” are arranged from left to right, in that order.

At step 920, a number of times a user has previously accessed the thirdmedia asset is determined. In some implementations, control circuitry304 may retrieve user's viewing history from storage 308 and process itin order to determine the number of times. For example, controlcircuitry 304 may determine that the user has accessed “Family Guy” tentimes.

At step 922, a determination is made as to whether the number of timesexceeds the threshold. In some implementations, the threshold may be setby the user. When the number of times exceeds the threshold, the processproceeds to step 924, otherwise the process proceeds to step 926.

At step 924, the plurality of visual objects (i.e., visual objectsincluded in the second user interface element) is rearranged into asecond order. In some implementations, the rearranging may includeremoving a visual object or changing its display property, such as size,font, font size, brightness or opaqueness.

At step 926, a second user interface element associated with the secondmedia asset is generated for display. In some embodiments, a seconddisplay property of the second user interface element may be differentfrom a corresponding first display property of the first user interfaceelement. For example, the size of the first and second user interfaceelements may be different.

It should be understood, that the above steps of the flow diagrams ofFIGS. 8 and 9 may be executed or performed in any order or sequence notlimited to the order and sequence shown and described in the figures.Also, some of the above steps of the flow diagrams of FIGS. 8 and 9 maybe executed or performed substantially simultaneously where appropriateor in parallel to reduce latency and processing times.

The above described embodiments of the present disclosure are presentedfor purposes of illustration and not of limitation, and the presentdisclosure is limited only by the claims which follow.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for selectively determining datadescribing audio-visual content items for presentation to a user basedon levels of interaction with audio-visual content items by entitiesconnected to the user by way of a social network, the method comprising:identifying, from a database, an entry corresponding to an audio-visualcontent item, the entry comprising a plurality of descriptive elements,each of the descriptive elements textually or visually describing anattribute of the audio-visual content item, wherein the descriptiveelements are distinct from the audio-visual content item; retrieving asocial media profile of the user, wherein the social media profile ofthe user comprises a history of social media publications made by theentities by way of the social network, wherein a social mediapublication is a post, message, or reaction on the social network;determining a number of social media publications of the history ofsocial media publications that refer to the audio-visual content item;comparing the number of social media publications to a predeterminedamount to determine whether the number of social media publications isgreater than the predetermined amount; in response to determining thatthe number of social media publications is greater than thepredetermined amount: selecting a first subset of the plurality ofdescriptive elements that textually or visually describe theaudio-visual content item; retrieving the first subset of the pluralityof descriptive elements that textually or visually describe theaudio-visual content item from the entry; and generating for display tothe user, before generating for display the audio-visual content item,the first subset of the plurality of descriptive elements that textuallyor visually describe the audio-visual content item; and in response todetermining that the number of social media publications is not greaterthan the predetermined amount: selecting a second subset of theplurality of descriptive elements that textually or visually describethe audio-visual content item, wherein a second number of descriptiveelements in the second subset is greater than a first number ofdescriptive elements in the first subset; retrieving the selected subsetof the plurality of descriptive elements that textually or visuallydescribe the audio-visual content item from the entry; and generatingfor display to the user, before generating for display the audio-visualcontent item, the second subset of descriptive elements that textuallyor visually describe the audio-visual content item.
 2. The method ofclaim 1, wherein determining the number of social media publications ofthe history of social media publications that correspond to theaudio-visual content item further comprises: comparing an attribute of asocial media publication of the history of social media publications tothe plurality of descriptive elements; determining that the social mediapublication refers to the audio-visual content item when the attributeof the social media publication matches a descriptive element of theplurality of descriptive elements that textually or visually describethe audio-visual content item; and in response to determining that thesocial media publication refers to the audio-visual content item,incrementing the number.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein retrievingthe social media profile of the user further comprises: transmittingauthentication information of the user over a network connection to aserver associated with the social network; and in response totransmitting the authentication information of the user to the server,receiving a subset of the history of social media publications.
 4. Themethod of claim 1, wherein generating for display to the user the subsetfurther comprises: generating for display a program listing associatedwith the audio-visual content item, wherein the program listingcomprises a visual element visually representing a descriptive elementof the subset, and wherein the program listing comprises a selectableoption for triggering playback of the audio-visual content item.
 5. Themethod of claim 4, further comprising modifying the visual element basedon a determination that the user has consumed the audio-visual contentitem.
 6. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of descriptiveelements that textually or visually describe the audio-visual contentitem is a first plurality of descriptive elements, and whereinretrieving the subset of the first plurality of descriptive elementsfurther comprises: retrieving a viewing history for the user, whereinthe viewing history identifies a second audio-visual content item thatwas previously consumed by the user; retrieving a second plurality ofdescriptive elements associated with the second audio-visual contentitem that textually or visually describe the second audio-visual contentitem; comparing descriptive elements in the first plurality ofdescriptive elements that textually or visually describe theaudio-visual content item with descriptive elements in the secondplurality of descriptive elements that textually or visually describethe second audio-visual content item to determine descriptive elementsin the first plurality of descriptive elements that match descriptiveelements in the second plurality of descriptive elements; and selectingthe subset of the first plurality of descriptive elements that do notmatch descriptive elements in the second plurality of descriptiveelements.
 7. The method of claim 6, further comprising selecting thesecond audio-visual content item based on a determination that the userhas consumed the second audio-visual content item a number of timesgreater than a second predetermined amount.
 8. The method of claim 1,wherein the predetermined amount is defined by the user.
 9. The methodof claim 1, wherein the first subset comprises one descriptive element,wherein the one descriptive element is a title of the audio-visualcontent item.
 10. The method of claim 1, wherein generating for displayto the user the selected subset occurs prior to playback of theaudio-visual content item.
 11. The method of claim 1, wherein the socialmedia profile of the user further comprises a history of social mediapublications made by the user.
 12. A system for selectively determiningdata describing audio-visual content items for presentation to a userbased on levels of interaction with audio-visual content items byentities connected to the user by way of a social network, comprisingcontrol circuitry configured to: identify, from a database, an entrycorresponding to an audio-visual content item, the entry comprising aplurality of descriptive elements, each of the descriptive elementstextually or visually describing an attribute of the audio-visualcontent item, wherein the descriptive elements are distinct from of theaudio-visual content item; retrieve a social media profile of the user,wherein the social media profile of the user comprises a history ofsocial media publications made by the entities by way of the socialnetwork, wherein a social media publication is a post, message, orreaction on the social network; determine a number of social mediapublications of the history of social media publications that refer tothe audio-visual content item; compare the number of social mediapublications to a predetermined amount to determine whether the numberof social media publications is greater than the predetermined amount;in response to determining that the number of social media publicationsis greater than the predetermined amount: select a first subset of theplurality of descriptive elements that textually or visually describethe audio-visual content item; retrieve a first subset of the pluralityof descriptive elements that textually or visually describe theaudio-visual content item; and generate for display to the user, beforegenerating for display the audio-visual content item, the first subsetof descriptive elements that textually or visually describe theaudio-visual content item; and in response to determining that thenumber of social media publications is not greater than thepredetermined amount: select a second subset of the plurality ofdescriptive elements that textually or visually describe theaudio-visual content item, wherein a second number of descriptiveelements in the second subset is greater than a first number ofdescriptive elements in the first subset; retrieve the second subset ofthe plurality of descriptive elements that textually or visuallydescribe the audio-visual content item from the entry; and generate fordisplay to the user, before generating for display the audio-visualcontent item, the second subset of descriptive elements that textuallyor visually describe the audio-visual content item.
 13. The system ofclaim 12, wherein the control circuitry is further configured, whendetermining the number of social media publications of the history ofsocial media publications that correspond to the audio-visual contentitem, to: compare an attribute of a social media publication of thehistory of social media publications to the plurality of descriptiveelements; determine that the social media publication refers to theaudio-visual content item when the attribute of the social mediapublication matches a descriptive element of the plurality ofdescriptive elements that textually or visually describe theaudio-visual content item; and in response to determining that thesocial media publication refers to the audio-visual content item,increment the number.
 14. The system of claim 12, wherein the controlcircuitry is further configured, when retrieving the social mediaprofile of the user, to: transmit authentication information of the userover a network connection to a server associated with the socialnetwork; and in response to transmitting the authentication informationof the user to the server, receive a subset of the history of socialmedia publications.
 15. The system of claim 12, wherein the controlcircuitry is further configured, when generating for display to the userthe subset, to: generating for display a program listing associated withthe audio-visual content item, wherein the program listing comprises avisual element visually representing a descriptive element of thesubset, and wherein the program listing comprises a selectable optionfor triggering playback of the audio-visual content item.
 16. The systemof claim 15, wherein the control circuitry is further configured tomodify the visual element based on a determination, by the controlcircuitry, that the user has consumed the audio-visual content item. 17.The system of claim 12, wherein the plurality of descriptive elementsthat textually or visually describe the audio-visual content item is afirst plurality of descriptive elements, and wherein the controlcircuitry is further configured, when retrieving the subset of the firstplurality of descriptive elements, to: retrieve a viewing history forthe user, wherein the viewing history identifies a second audio-visualcontent item that was previously consumed by the user; retrieve a secondplurality of descriptive elements associated with the secondaudio-visual content item that textually or visually describe the secondaudio-visual content item; compare descriptive elements in the firstplurality of descriptive elements that textually or visually describethe audio-visual content item with descriptive elements in the secondplurality of descriptive elements that textually or visually describethe second audio-visual content item to determine descriptive elementsin the first plurality of descriptive elements that match descriptiveelements in the second plurality of descriptive elements; and select thesubset of the first plurality of descriptive elements that do not matchdescriptive elements in the second plurality of descriptive elements.18. The system of claim 17, wherein the control circuity is furtherconfigured to select the second audio-visual content item based on adetermination that the user has consumed the second audio-visual contentitem a number of times greater than a second predetermined amount. 19.The system of claim 12, wherein the predetermined amount is defined bythe user.
 20. The system of claim 12, wherein the control circuitry isconfigured to generate for display to the user the subset prior toplayback of the audio-visual content item.
 21. The system of claim 12,wherein the social media profile of the user further comprises a historyof social media publications made by the user.